Song He had initially thought that, with the divine equipment granted by Teacher Xiang, searching for new brainwaves would be easy.
But as it turned out, he had celebrated too soon.
From six-thirty in the morning until six-thirty in the evening, dozens of members of the Song He Team worked nonstop for twelve straight hours. They racked their brains analyzing the brainwave data, staring at their computer screens until their eyes nearly went blind, yet they found not a single clue.
There was no other reason—the amount of brainwave data was simply too massive and chaotic!
Over the same period, the brainwave data provided by the Artificial Brain Worm was more than eight times greater than the data provided by the old electrode method!
A small portion of the extra data consisted of finer brainwave patterns, but most of it was unknown noise!
Vast amounts of noise surged across the screens like boiling water bubbling up, rising and falling densely and chaotically without any discernible pattern!
The oldest member of the team, Lu Chengen, said it looked like the static on an old television. The younger team members had never seen an old television, but they more or less understood what he meant. There was so much noise that it looked like snowing!
The most difficult part was that Song He was now trying to find unknown brainwaves. Unknown brainwaves could take all kinds of forms, so how were they supposed to separate them from the noise? Who knew which parts were noise and which parts were new brainwaves?
With no other option, he took pictures of the data and sent them to Teacher Xiang.
"Teacher, is this noise normal? Is it noise from the Artificial Brain Worm itself, or noise from the brain?"
After waiting a moment, a reply arrived.
Xiang Xiaotong: "I don't know."
Song He froze. "You don't know? Isn't this something your team uses?"
Xiang Xiaotong: "When we used the Artificial Brain Worm, the entire screen was filled with this kind of noise too. In the end, we used a program to filter it out, but after filtering, only known brainwaves remained. If you want to find unknown new brainwaves, you'll have to find a way to distinguish their patterns from the noise."
Xiang Xiaotong: "We don't know where the noise comes from. We performed troubleshooting many times, but it was useless. It could be a problem with the Artificial Brain Worm itself, interference from the environment, shallow transient waves recorded by the Artificial Brain Worm from various parts of the brain, or unknown new brainwaves. Think of something yourself."
Song He: "All right. Thank you, Teacher! I hope tonight's New Product Launch Event is a huge success!"
Xiang Xiaotong: "I hope your words come true!"
He closed his phone and let out a mournful sigh.
It seemed he couldn't rely blindly on high technology. The Artificial Brain Worm was actually only a half-finished product?!
"The monkey died again!" Fan Tao cried out in alarm.
In the operating-table area, six monkeys were simultaneously undergoing scans by the Artificial Brain Worm, with streams of data continuously appearing on dozens of computers.
At that moment, one monkey died. The brainwave data on many of the computers fell silent, like the surface of a lake after a heavy rain had just stopped. No new raindrops stirred up splashes, leaving behind only ripples that had yet to fade.
Farther away, several spare monkeys were locked inside transparent plastic boxes. Seeing one of their companions die, they shrank in terror into the corners of the boxes, sensing that disaster might soon befall them.
"Send it for cremation!" Lou Jinghui shouted.
Several people immediately gathered around and prepared to deal with the corpse.
Song He swept a glance over the screen. Watching the ripples gradually diminish, he suddenly thought of something.
"Stop!" Song He shouted. "Don't deal with the corpse yet! Keep watching the brainwave data after death!"
Several hands had already grabbed the dead monkey, but at his words, they immediately let go.
Everyone understood in an instant. They rushed to the computers and pulled up the brainwave data of the dead monkey.
About a minute earlier, the dead monkey's brainwaves had displayed severe Gamma Oscillation. It was likely in the stage of a final resurgence, recalling its brief life. Although only a short time had passed in the outside world, within the monkey's consciousness, those memories would stretch out much longer.
Song He stared at the screen distractedly. What was the monkey recalling in its final moments?
Pretty female monkeys and male monkeys? The most delicious apple it had ever eaten? A fleeting glimpse of the streets of Ruoqiang Base after being taken out of the Monkey Garden?
Immediately afterward, the oscillations vanished, and the brainwaves fell cold and silent. It was officially dead!
Judging from the three-dimensional image on the left, the entire brain had cooled. Brain Activity plummeted, but several minutes later, individual regions of the brain were still trembling from time to time, producing faint, illusion-like traces of Brain Activity.
The entire monkey brain was like an extinguished pile of firewood. Although the flames were gone, wisps of smoke still rose from it. Stir the ashes, and a few sparks could still be seen faintly glowing inside!
The noise was still there, but it had clearly decreased considerably.
After waiting a full hour, there was still Brain Activity, flickering on the screen from time to time.
"Fan! Go stimulate the monkey!" Song He shouted.
"How should I stimulate it?" Fan Tao asked from a distance.
"Touch it with your hands, stab it with a knife, burn it with a lighter—anything works!" Song He said. "Stimulate it as hard as you can. Dismembering it is fine too. I want to see how the brain reacts!"
Fan Tao put on rubber gloves, picked up a scalpel, and began stabbing the corpse. She cut off the monkey's tail piece by piece, then sliced open its abdomen, pulled out its organs, and tore open its skin...
Many team members stared in stupefaction. How could such a beautiful girl carry out something so brutal without even changing her expression?
Song He watched the screen for a long while. Then, the corner of his mouth lifted as he called out loudly:
"All right! Everyone, pay attention to the ripples in the monkey brain right now!"
"These brainwave ripples might be individual brain cells that haven't yet lost their vitality and are still burning out their last bit of energy!"
"They might also be noise produced by the Artificial Brain Worm or environmental factors!"
"Tonight's task is to find the patterns in these ripples and create a program to remove the noise!"
"Understood!" everyone in the laboratory shouted in unison, their voices brimming with excitement.
Although it was bizarre to study brainwaves emerging from a dead monkey, everyone had a vague feeling that these tiny post-mortem brainwaves definitely held research value!
When electrodes had been used to test monkey brains in the past, it had been completely impossible to detect so many subtle brainwaves after death. The Artificial Brain Worm had created a new opportunity!
One had to understand that more than half of the cutting-edge papers in science and engineering were currently produced with the help of advanced instruments and equipment. Whichever laboratory had better equipment could produce papers as prolifically as a sow giving birth to piglets!
The dozens of team members swept away their fatigue and got to work excitedly.
Song He did not join them. Instead, he found a corner, crouched down, and played with his phone!
It wasn't that he was slacking off. The main reason was that an important livestream was taking place tonight.
He quickly found the official account of Neuron Company.
The Livestream Room had already been created. The camera was filming the Press Conference venue, where numerous guests were busy looking for their seats.
A large group of reporters had already arrived and were setting up cameras below the stage. Song He spotted several familiar logos: several major official media outlets in the country, some business and technology-industry media, and several foreign media outlets as well. Cameras of all shapes and sizes were aimed at the stage!
The setup was grand!
On the large screen at the Press Conference, Neuron Company's enormous logo shone brightly: a white nerve cell, cold, elegant, and brimming with a technological aesthetic!
Song He couldn't help feeling nervous.
Although the company belonged to Teacher Xiang, the key parts of the built-in program for tonight's product had been written by him personally!
If the product about to be released was a newborn child, then did that make him, the person who provided the program, its father?
That thought felt a little strange...
As the time drew nearer, the number of viewers in the Livestream Room continued to rise: five thousand, ten thousand, thirty thousand, fifty thousand...
Once the number surpassed one hundred thousand, the comments had become so dense that it was practically impossible to see the screen.
Song He's eyes swept over some of the comments, and his expression immediately darkened.
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